By David Futrelle
You may have noticed a strange explosion of highly surreal memes hitting your Twitter home page of late. Blame the Artificial Intelligence-powered meme generator that you can find here, which will happily generate as many weird and baffling memes as you could ever want.
Now, the meme generator is a fairly basic thing, in principle: it takes in hundreds (thousands?) of human-generated memes in a variety of formats before pooping out something it doesn’t understand, but that we humans might.
Given that the AI-meme-generator literally doesn’t know what it’s saying, most of the memes it puts out tend to be a bit puzzling:
And sometimes it doesn’t seem to understand the meme format at all:
But alongside the surreal memes, the AI-meme-generator somehow manages to spit out others that make perfect (or at least only slightly imperfect) sense. I’ve been fiddling around with it for awhile and have been surprised and intrigued by these memes, which seem very much like the memes an actual human might produce on their own.
Indeed, these memes make a lot more sense than many if not most of the Men’s Rights memes I’ve run across (and written about) over the years — despite the fact that the MRA memes were generated by actual human beings who, at least in theory, should know what they’re saying.
Let’s look at examples from both genres — contrasting some of my, er, favorite MRA memes with memes the AI-meme-generator made for me.
Let’s start with this authentic MRA meme:
Apparently the thought process behind this, er, hilarity is: “Women are stupid! And rape is funny! Sharks!”
This AI-generated meme makes a lot more sense:
I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a nice hot dog once in a while?
Here’s an MRA meme taking aim at women in the military:
Contrast that with this cheerful and wholesome AI-generated meme:
Again, the AI hits the nail on the head. Everyone loves to see people talking about their cool stuff.
Here’s a dark and bewildering MRA meme:
I suppose the message here is supposed to be “even if she says she’s not a feminist, she might secretly be one, and falsely accuse you of rape.” But I’m not sure anyone not steeped in MRA-talk could discern that.
Also, why is “radical/white” in ironic quotes?
By contrast, this next AI-generated meme, while admittedly rude and perhaps a bit sexist, is as clear as a (school) bell.
This MRA meme may leave you scratching at your head as you try to puzzle out its strange “logic.”
This AI meme, by contrast, makes so much sense it hurts.
In the world we live in today, who has the patience to wait until you get home to get sloshed?
So why are MRA memes so illogical and incomprehensible? Part of the problem is that reality is not on their side, and so many of their memes only make sense if you’re already living in the imaginary world of the Men’s Rights movement, where black is white and mean, bitchy women rule over all. I know enough about this world from the many years I’ve spent doing this blog that I can usually make some sort of sense of most of their memes, but I still struggle with some of them. It doesn’t help much that many MRAs are bitter bastards choking on their own aggrieved entitlement; their attempts at jokes are undercut by their meanness and their barely developed sense of humor.
The AI may not have a sense of humor, but it’s also unencumbered by all this baggage, so when it pops out with something that’s funny, it’s genuinely funny.
Congratulations, MRA; it’s official now: You’ve failed the Turing test.
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O/T, but this thread is already 400 posts in:
Some guy is going around buying subscriptions to women’s OnlyFans and then threatening to send the nudes to their parents if they don’t shut it down and/or work for him. I’m not sure if this is illegal, but it’s definitely a noteworthy example of misogyny and the ways that stigmatizing sex work hurts those involved.
Blackmail and extortion are absolutely illegal, and so is revenge porn in most jurisdictions in the US.
ETA: although now that I think about it, it probably doesn’t fall under revenge porn. Would depend on how the individual law was worded. But it’s absolutely blackmail or extortion depending on what the dude is asking the women to do in exchange for his silence.
Wow, so many great topics cropping up here! Really getting my mind buzzing.
First though for Naglfar
Courtesy of Mel Brooks…
@ naglfar
Certainly is here. We’ve had a few similar cases. Most have actually been dealt with by the civil route. The benefit of that is you can get an injunction and that can be used to stop third parties facilitating the offending action. So you can get websites taken down, subscriptions blocked etc.
But in criminal terms it’s just blackmail.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/21
@ jenora
Yeah, JMC had a lot to say about religious beliefs in the future. You may remember this:
@ POM
It would fit the definition we have here; but blackmail would be the most appropriate offence. Although the disclosure would cause distress, the primary purpose would be gain.
Also with blackmail the threat is enough; you don’t need to have actually done the disclosure.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/2/section/33/enacted
@Alan
Revenge porn laws are state-by-state here, and some specify that the image has to have been confidential and others don’t. If you’re selling content, then it could be argued that the content is not confidential and therefore spreading it around wouldn’t be revenge porn in those jurisdictions. Blackmail still applies.
@ jenora
You’re probably aware of how this has cropped up regarding the burial of nuclear waste. How do you put up a warning not to dig it up that will still be recognised as such in the future.
And there we’re talking about fellow humans a few tens of thousand of years away. There’s at least a possibility of a shared frame of reference. How different a billion year old alien civilisation might be.
I do a fair bit of teaching. Not because I think I’m any good (‘Better to be a horrible warning than a shining example’ is my motto) but for my own benefit.
Nothing makes you get your act together than having to explain it to someone else. I also subscribe to that idea that you remember 10% of what you learn but 90% of what you teach. Probably bollocks; but that’s never been a factor in whether I believe something.
@ POM
That could be a defence under our laws. But blackmail is more appropriate anywayI think, both legally and morally.
@Alan Robertshaw, PoM
He claims to live in Chicago, so I guess it depends what the law is in Illinois.
@Alan
Re JMS and the portrayal of religion in B5, specifically the scene you posted: At that point in the series, Ivanova had not been specifically identified as Jewish, but watch her as she’s making her way down the line. She is very polite to the Muslim gentleman, but obviously pleased to see the Jewish gentleman, greeting him with a friendlier affect, as if he’s somebody she’s met before. My own headcanon is that they had indeed met a time or two, though probably not at shul, as he’s Orthodox and from what we’ve seen of her later in the series, she’s probably Reform. Certainly she’s not terribly faithful in keeping kosher, given that Marcus once served her bacon and eggs, and she didn’t give him any grief over it. (And let’s face it – she was not shy about giving anybody whatfer.)
On the topic of religion in SF, I’ve always admired the way Lois McMaster Bujold portrayed Cordelia as a believer, and likely a variety of Christian, but never specified a label. We know Cordelia prays in times of stress, and she’s said enough that we know her faith is important to her, but even “Christian” is a guess, based purely on sentiments expressed. It could be she belongs to a denomination that springs up after the advent of space flight, like the Foundationism Jenora mentioned earlier.
@ Vicky P
Oh yeah, I see that now. It does very much look like when you have to do some formal thing with someone you already know!
Well the Minbari religious caste are supposedly vegan; so maybe they have a supply of faux stuff handy?
And to tie in religion with the plaque discussion; I do very much like Bender’s take.
@Naglfar
Not even if it otherwise met the criteria? Parallel evolution might produce two-toed cud-chewers elsewhere, after all.
@Dalillama
There wouldn’t be a mesorah, or tradition of Jews eating it, which isn’t technically required but really helps in getting something accepted as kosher. Also, I feel like we’d have to find an applicable definition of the two-toed ungulates that would be similar enough to those on Earth.
Is wholly-synthetic food kosher?
@Surplus
In general, yes.
@Alan
Yeah, it wasn’t something I picked up on until the second time I watched it, which was after I’d seen “TKO.” One of my favorite Ivanova episodes from S1, to the point where if I rewatch it these days, I skip ahead through all the martial arts scenes in favor of watching Ivanova work through her grief for her father.
B5 was one of the few (and last) things I ever really saw on TV. A mate was really into it, and I got hooked too. It was just so well plotted. I doubt they could make something like that today where second series are so rare and everything is written on the fly anyway.
Eh, when I started watching The Expanse, I got a B5 vibe from it. You could argue that the showrunners had it easy because they were adapting a series of novels, but I’d argue that since JMS had written a few hundred thousand words of background before he’d been able to sell the show, it comes to the same thing. In fact, if you read his novel Othersyde, you’ll see that JMS had his teenaged protagonist watching Babylon 5, which his internal narration asserted was the best TV program EVER … and this was published in 1990. “The Gathering” aired in 1993. The show has its flaws, but it’s a solid work overall because JMS invested so much time and energy in it, not to mention the cast and crew brought their A-game.
Which is to say, if you haven’t given The Expanse a try, you might want to. The character development and political themes make for good storytelling, though I think a few points here and there are underdeveloped. But that’s me. I especially love the use of the Belter creole, ‘cos good use of conlang tickles my fancy, to pochuye ke?
@ Vicky P
Well I do like to keep me mozg working whilst I’m oddy-knocky during lockdown. So thank you; that’s real horrorshow!
@Alan
Taki!
@Alan
Argh, me own mozg is failing me this morning. I meant to write, Im ta nating!
I need more caff.
I did wonder!
Although I liked it cos it reminds me of the Norwegian Tusen Takk; which I really like; and use a lot.
I think you’ll enjoy The Expanse, then. I’ll be interested in hearing what you think of the private (corporation-owned) police force used in Belter colonies, not to mention what the United Nations gets up to.
@Alan
Seconding the recommendation of The Expanse, both the show and the novels. One of the things I like best about the show is that it works well even if you’ve read the novels because they change up enough of the ancillary stuff that you still get new material while simultaneously being fairly true to the original texts.
…and the books are fantastic. Not perfect by any means, but well written and plotted, especially in terms of the overall series arc. My son and I are waiting very impatiently for the ninth installment, which was supposed to be released this month, but in keeping with Ty Franck’s boss, there’s nary a whiff of it to be seen….